How To Talk On Twitter

There are many different reasons that you might want to learn how to talk on Twitter. Twitter can be used for marketing, to promote your hobbies or ideas, or just to keep in touch with your friends. Regardless of how you want to use it, you'll first have to learn the basics.

1. Sign up for Twitter. Signing up for Twitter is a relatively easy process. When you're signing up, it's not necessary that you enter a profile message and pick a profile picture, but if you do it will help you later when you start making friends. At this point, you will also choose whether your profile is public or private. This will affect to some degree how you talk on Twitter.
2. Find people to follow. You can start by asking your friends if they have accounts, but that's not the only way to find people to connect with on Twitter. Do a search on Twitter for names you know, or simply visit websites that interest you; most now have a link to a Twitter account.
   
3. Decide your purpose. Deciding ahead of time how you're going to use the application will determine how you talk on Twitter. For example, if you don't intend to use Twitter for business or marketing purposes, you can be a little less careful with what you say. However, don't forget that (if your tweets are public) anyone else on the internet can read them. If you plan to use Twitter professionally, be professional.
4. Make a practice tweet. You talk on Twitter by sending "tweets" (messages no longer than 140 characters) to your followers. Go to your homepage and type in something easy, like "Hello everyone! I just joined Twitter!" The tweet will show up in your tweet queue, along with the tweets of your followers.
5. Fit your statements into 140 characters. You can't write more than 140 characters in a tweet. Some people spread one statement over several tweets, but it's not recommended because tweet fragments can be confusing. With a little practice, you can easily write fun and interesting things in the allowed space. If you're sending long links, use a program like Tinyurl to shrink the link to fit within the 140 character limit.
6. Learn to reply, retweet, and send direct messages. When you're talking on Twitter, you're likely to come across other people's tweets that you want to share with all of your followers. To do this, press the "retweet" icon under the message. To reply to someone's tweet, press the "reply" icon: this will put "@personsname" into the body of your tweet, and that person will be able to see that you've sent them something. You can also send a direct message that will only be seen by the person receiving the message, and not by everyone on Twitter.